by Hugh Fitzgerald
The UAE diplomat of course had no choice but to reply with feigned enthusiasm for Blinken’s wanting to invite the Palestinians to take part, not in the Abraham Accords, but in “regional initiatives.”
On April 13, an unidentified Middle Eastern official told The Times of Israel that the United Arab Emirates was most unenthusiastic about the proposal of Anthony Blinken at the Negev Summit to include the Palestinians in “regional initiatives” other than the Abraham Accords.
On April 14, in a direct rebuttal, a senior Emirati diplomat told The Times of Israel that contrary to that previously reported remark, the UAE is eager to take part in regional initiatives that incorporate the Palestinians. “UAE insists it welcomes regional initiatives that include Palestinians,” by Lazar Berman and Jacob Magid, Times of Israel, April 14, 2022:
“We welcome any American-led initiative to incorporate the Palestinians,” said the diplomat. “We were very actively involved” in “the conversation in the Negev Summit about the Palestinians.”
The UAE diplomat of course had no choice but to reply with feigned enthusiasm for Blinken’s wanting to invite the Palestinians to take part, not in the Abraham Accords, but in “regional initiatives.” It is, after all, the Biden Administration’s idea, and the UAE has no desire to annoy the Bidenites, especially not when Abu Dhabi is doing everything it can to persuade Washington not to agree to the “bad, very bad, terrible” Iran deal. The whole point of the Negev Summit was for Israel and its Sunni Arab allies to together express their grave reservations to the Americans about how the Bidenites, and especially the appeasement-minded Robert Malley, are conducting those on-again-off-again talks in Vienna. Fortunately, for now they are hung up – thank god – on the refusal of Biden to lift the designation of “terrorist group” from the IRGC, which Iran’s diplomats insist is a condition precedent to their agreeing to any deal.
The diplomat’s comments came after another Middle Eastern official told The Times of Israel on Wednesday that the UAE was the least enthusiastic participant in March’s Negev Summit around US efforts to include the Palestinians in regional cooperation schemes.
That first statement was the truth. There is no love lost between the UAE and the Palestinians, who have bitterly criticized the Emirates both for being the first Arab country to join the Abraham Accords, and for entering so enthusiastically into deals of every kind – trade, technology, tourism, agriculture — with the Jewish state. The feigned enthusiasm a day later was an attempt to appease the Bidenites who had no doubt been angered by the public report made the day before on the UAE’s opposition to the Palestinian participation. The Bidenite proposal really makes no sense, unless you think appeasement of the Palestinians, even if — or especially if — it slows down the integration of Israel into its neighborhood, is a splendid idea. The PA is not going to contribute to further improving the ties between Israel and its Arab neighbors; it will simply use its participation in any “regional initiative” to throw a spanner in the works whenever it gets the chance, undermining both Israel, and any Arab state that wants to better its relations with the Jewish state. The troublemakers in Ramallah should not be escorted in to join these “regional initiatives” by the Bidenites, whose keystone-kop foreign policy has led to one collective pratfall after another, but kept firmly out.
UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan was the only participant who didn’t mention the Palestinians during a joint press statement at the conclusion of the landmark summit.
The Emiratis insist that the omission is not indicative of any hesitancy about bringing the Palestinians into regional projects.
Of course it is. The UAE Foreign Minister knew that his every word – what he said and what he omitted –would be studied. That failure to mention the Palestinians – whom he also failed to mention in his opening remarks at the summit – was pregnant with meaning. The UAE has washed its hands of the Palestinians. Like the Saudi Crown Prince, Muhammad bin Salman, who in 2018 famously told the complaining Mahmoud Abbas just to “take whatever deal the Americans offer you,” the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, and the UAE over which he rules, have lost interest in the Palestinians.The UAE is now determined to pursue its own national interests, undeterred by anything the Palestinians may want. They are no longer the center of Arab concerns, and become less important every day. That is the whole point of the Abraham Accords. And the ferocious criticism of the UAE by the Palestinians, for joining the Abraham Accords, has alienated the UAE further still from the PA.
“We are ready to engage whenever the Palestinians are open to a broader cooperation initiative,” the UAE diplomat said. “We welcome it.”
“Any regional initiatives that collectively involves the Americans, the Egyptians, the Jordanians, the Palestinians, we’ll certainly support and will actively contribute to it,” the diplomat said.
Those remarks by the UAE diplomat were, he must have thought, “what the Americans want to hear from us, so let’s just mouth the right words of minimal encouragement. Nothing will come of it, anyway. We’ll continue on the mutually beneficial path we have started with Israel. Onward and upward with the Abraham Accords.”
The unprecedented gathering [the Negev Summit] was partially an attempt by Israel and its Arab allies to project a unified front against shared regional foe Iran, and to impress upon Blinken their concern about the direction of US policy on Iran. Israeli officials told reporters at the scene that the talks centered around creating a “regional security architecture,” among other issues.
During their closing statements, the top diplomats from the US, Bahrain, Morocco, and especially Egypt reiterated their support for a Palestinian state.
But during the two days of meetings that came before those closing statements, the Palestinians were never discussed. And not only did the UAE not mention the Palestinians, but the foreign ministers of the other states in their closing remarks gave exactly one Laodicean sentence apiece to their supposed “support for a Palestinian state.” That was the bare minimum one could expect.
Ramallah, for its part, fiercely criticized the summit.
Senior Palestinian official Bassam al-Salihi told The Times of Israel that the Arab diplomats’ visit to the Negev will not help the Palestinians, “whatever their reasoning” for participating.
“The Palestinian issue won’t be present in this summit. If it is present, it will be on Israel’s terms,” said al-Salihi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee.
Al-Salihi was right. The Palestinian issue was given short shrift at Sde Boker, with a single sentence apiece from the Arab participants in their closing statements about their “support for a Palestinian state.” It was the American participant, Secretary of State Blinken, who kept insisting on talking about the Palestinians, and about how good it would be for the other Arab states at the Negev Summit, and Israel, working “with them” in the future on these imaginary “regional projects.” The Bidenites are incapable of pocketing what those Arab states are offering: a Middle East where the Palestinians are off everyone’s agenda, and can’t throw a spanner in the works of Arab-Israeli reconciliation.
Jordan, which did not send its foreign minister to the summit, has linked the warmth of its relationship with Israel to Jerusalem’s policies toward the Palestinians. During the summit itself, PA President Mahmoud Abbas hosted Jordan’s King Abdullah in Ramallah….
Jordan, of course, has to take care not to alienate the Palestinians. After all, more than 60% of the Jordanian population is Palestinian. But at the same time, Amman can’t allow its own national interest in furthering mutually beneficial economic ties with Israel to be held hostage to what will satisfy the PA. Right now, Jordan desperately needs water from Israel, which in response to Jordan’s request last year, doubled — to some 50 billion cubic meters a year – the amount of water it sends to Jordan, even though Israel is itself a water-poor country. Jordan also receives natural gas from Israel’s offshore Leviathan field, under an agreement that will last until 2035. The Palestinians in the Jordanian Parliament are constantly demanding that all agreements with Israel be ended; apparently they do not realize how dependent Jordan is on supplies of both water and natural gas from the “Zionists.” Fortunately, the level-headed government bureaucrats in Amman are well aware of the benefits those agreements bring to the Hashemite kingdom.
Abbas told Blinken when they met in Ramallah, hours before the secretary of state headed to Sde Boker, that he welcomed opportunities to incorporate the Palestinians into the broader regional alliances, a Palestinian official said, while clarifying that such a move could not come via the platform of the Abraham Accords.
Of course Abbas will “welcome opportunities” for the Palestinians to be invited to take part in “broader regional alliances,” where they will do everything they can to hinder Israel’s progress in improving relations both with Arab members of the Abraham Accords, and with other states – Egypt and Saudi Arabia – that have longstanding, and increasing, security ties to the Jewish state and, consequently, are potential members of the Accords.
The Negev Summit showed just how much progress Israel has made in being accepted by several of its Arab neighbors, progress that was possible because the Palestinian question was simply put on the back burner, where it has long belonged. Now the Bidenites are trying to bring the Palestinians again into the regional mix, where they will only do harm to the possibilities for lengthening, and strengthening (to use a Bidenite phrase) the Abraham Accords. Long after Israel and the Arab states have recognized the irrelevance of the PA and the master schemer in Ramallah, and are making their own deals (nearly $1 billion worth, so far, just between Israel and the Emirates) the Bidenites apparently will not concede that reality, and are determined to put the Palestinians back on center stage. One more reason — did you need another? — to throw them out of office at the earliest possible opportunity.
Hugh Fitzgerald
Source: https://robertspencer.org/2022/04/postmortem-on-the-negev-summit
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